The access and management of databases that hold taxonomic-related and sequence-related data has become increasingly complex as the size of these databases has increased exponentially over the last few decades. The retrieval of information from these databases is also complicated by frequent additions, deletions, and modifications of entries, many of which are made at irregular intervals. Apart from the technological difficulties that come with retrieving information from large databases, the representation of taxonomic information raises a number of issues not encountered in other areas. For example, a particular organism may include multiple taxonomic entries (synonyms) which differ in one or more aspects (e.g., spelling) from each other. Thus, a user attempting to retrieve information for a particular organism having knowledge of only one synonym taxonomic entry may be unable to retrieve information held in other synonym taxonomic entries.
Accordingly, there is a need for new methods, systems, and techniques for accessing and managing databases that hold taxonomic-related and sequence-related data.